Labour Force Survey 2012
Samoa, 2012
Identification
WSM_2012_LFS_v01_M
Labour Force Survey 2012
| Name | Country code |
|---|---|
| Samoa | WSM |
Labor Force Survey [hh/lfs]
The Labour Force Survey is the first of its kind in Samoa based on concepts and definitions outlined by the International Labour Organization. It is plan to undertake in every 4 years depending on the availability of funding from the Government of Samoa through the ongoing collaboration between Samoa Bureau of Statistics and Ministry of Commerce Industry and Labour.
This survey provide some insights into employment and labour relations situation in Samoa covering topics such as characteristics of the Working Age Population (WAP), labour force, employment characteristics, participation in subsistence production, informal employment, unemployment characteristics, youth (aged 15 - 29 years) employment and unemployment characteristics, earnings from employment, working hours, occupational safety and equal opportunities for all, and a module on youth school-to-work transition (subject of a separate report). Hence, policy makers, planners and administrators will find this report useful in assisting them to develop, manage and evaluate labour market policies and programmes and to provide information's on hazards at work to enable them to formulate employment and labour related based decisions for the betterment of Samoa.
Sample survey data [ssd]
-
Individuals
-
Household
Version
- v1.0
Scope
The scope of the Labour Force Survey includes:
-
Section A. Household composition and characteristics of household members
-
Section B. Literacy and Education (For persons aged 15 years and over)
-
Section C. Training within the last 12 months (outside of the general education system. For persons aged 15 years and over)
-
Section D. Current activities (For persons aged 15 and over)
-
Section E. Characteristics of the main job/activity in the last 7 days (For employed persons aged 15 years and over)
-
Section F. Hours of work in the last 7 days (For persons aged 15 and over)
-
Section G. Underemployment in the past seven days (For employed persons aged 15 years and over)
-
Section H. Job search (For persons not employed in the last 7 days aged 15 years and over)
-
Section I. Inactive in the last 7 days (For persons aged 15 and over)
-
Section J. Occupational injuries within the last 12 months (For persons aged 15 and over)
-
Section K. Participation in the Production of Goods for use by own household (For persons aged 15 and over)
Coverage
-
National Coverage.
-
Urban and rural areas and regarding the regional part, there are: Apia Urban Area, North West of Upolu, Rest of Upolu and Savaii.
During the LFS, in each of the sample selected households, all persons in the household were interviewed hence the weighting was based on the responding households in the sample or household weights.
Producers and sponsors
| Name | Affiliation |
|---|---|
| Samoa Bureau of Statistics | Government of Samoa |
| Name | Role |
|---|---|
| International Labour Organization | Funding |
| Government of Samoa | Human Resources |
| Name | Affiliation | Role |
|---|---|---|
| Ministry of Women, Community and Social Development | Government Ministry | Deals with Villages Represtatives |
Sampling
The sample was design to cover 10 percent of the households in both urban and rural areas. A representative probability sample of households was selected in two stages. First stage involved the selection of clusters or primary sampling units using probability proportional to size(PPS) resulting in a total of 341 clusters of which 119 clusters were selected from Apia Urban Area, 94 in North West Upolu, 63 in Rest of Upolu and 65 in Savaii. The first region is located in the urban area, while all others are in the rural areas of Samoa.
In the LFS 2012, a representative probability sample of households was selected in two stages. The first stage involved the selection of clusters or primary sampling units using probability proportional to size (PPS) resulting in a total of 341 clusters of which 119 clusters were selected from AUA, 94 in NWU, 63 in ROU and 65 in Savaii. In the second stage of selection, a fixed number of 5 households were selected systematically from the AUA clusters and a fixed number of 10 households were selected from all the rural regions due to the higher transportation costs in those regions. This resulted in a total of 592 selected households in AUA, 948 in NWU, 617 in ROU and 641 in Savaii or 2,798 sample households in total. Any difference in the final numbers will be due to household found and responding households.
Labour Force Survey response rate is 91%.
During the LFS, in each of the selected households, all persons in the household were interviewed hence the weighting was based on the responding households in the sample or household weights.
Survey instrument
The Questionnaire includes:
-
Education and Training
-
Economic Activity and Labour Force
-
Employment
-
Participation in Subsistence Production
-
Informal Employment
-
Unemployment
-
Youth Employment and Unemployment
-
Earnings from Employment
-
Working Hours
-
Occupational Safety
-
Equal Opportunities
-
Social Dialogue
Data collection
| Start | End |
|---|---|
| 2012 | 2012 |
| Name | Affiliation |
|---|---|
| Samoa Bureau of Statistics | Government Ministry |
The survey consisted of four field supervisors, one from the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Labour and three from the Bureau itself. Each was assigned a team to manage and to supervise the field work. There were thirty-two applicants that applied to be enumerators and twenty-eight were interviewed. Of this total, twenty enumerators were selected based on strict selection criteria's that were designed by the steering committee. A total of four field teams were used for collecting the data during the field work and each team consisted of one supervisor and five enumerators. Each team used a 4-wheel drive vehicle to travel from cluster to cluster (and where necessary within cluster). Survey Manager was responsible for regular visits on the field to keep track of the work and help out eliminating possible field work errors.
A separate training/ discussion was conducted for three days from 10th October 2012 - 12th October 2012 for supervisors to make them aware of the survey tools, to provide support to the enumerators on the field on an ad hoc basis and to discuss any issues arising from the survey questionnaire. Furthermore, members of the steering committee were also invited to attend so that they understood the questionnaire fully. A two-week training of enumerators together with field supervisors followed and was conducted for two weeks from 16th October 2012 - 26th October 2012. Six days were spent on discussing administrative logistics, role of enumerators and supervisors, the training of the questionnaire, reading and understanding household lists and aerial maps designed by the bureau, explaining and clarifying key concepts used in the survey as per ILO definitions and discussing issues arising from the questionnaire. One day was spent on group discussions to identify any additional issues. The remaining two days were spent on practical exercises where one enumerator was an interviewer and the other was the respondent. All other enumerators were encouraged to record the answers of the interview which were discussed after each interview.
On October 27th 2012, a pilot test was conducted in a rural village, Samatau, located approximately 30km from the capital of Apia. Four teams of six comprising of five enumerators and one supervisor were dispersed in the morning and each enumerator was encouraged to interview at least two households. Supervisors were asked to manage the field logistics of its respective team.
The interviewed results from the pilot survey were discussed for four days from 29th October - 1st November. In addition to this, data entry for the pilot survey to test the data entry program designed for the survey started on 30th October and completed on 5th November.
The results of which were made known to everyone on 2nd November. Numerous and various aspects of the questionnaire needed improvement which were further reiterated and reemphasized.
Furthermore, field work plan and logistics, team allocation and a brief summary of the survey was also done on 2nd November.
A total of four field teams were used for collecting the data during the field work and each team consisted of one supervisor and five enumerators.
The field work was conducted for six consecutive weeks from 5th November 2012 - 15th December 2012, where Upolu was enumerated from 5th November 2012 - 5th December 2012 and Savaii was enumerated from 7th December - 15th December 2012.
Two field teams were assigned each geographical region to carry out the interviews while the other two teams shared the remaining geographical region in Upolu due to the workload and travelling time.
All the field teams enumerated the Savaii region due to travelling time resulting from the geographical scatteredness of the selected households.
Data processing
Four data entry operators were hired for a total of seven weeks from 21st January - 8th March 2012 for data entry. Two were retained for a period of one week from 11th March - 15th March for data cleaning and editing. The data entry activity was supervised by a locally hired computer consultant in collaboration with one officer from the bureau. This local computer consultant was also hired to design a data entry program, a data processing system for the survey and for producing the necessary tables according to the tabulation plan. The Census and Survey Processing System (CSPRO 5.0) package was used for managing both the data entry and data processing which was also used to produce the required tables for the survey. Computer Programmer and the Data Processing Team have been working so hard to revised the data repeatedly before it was finalized. Since this is the first survey of its kind to be conducted in Samoa and the ILO standard questionnaire was adopted, a lot of new variables have been derived from the data and imputed to contextualize to the local text, perhaps make some sense to the analysis.
Data Access
| Name | Affiliation | URL | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Samoa Bureau of Statistics | Government Ministry | http://www.sbs.gov.ws/ | info.stats@sbs.gov.ws |
| Is signing of a confidentiality declaration required? | Confidentiality declaration text |
|---|---|
| yes | All information collected in this survey is strictly confidential and will be used for statistical purposes only. Confidentiality of respondents is guaranteed by Articles N to NN of the National Statistics Act of 1971 which is now being reviewed by Parliament |
The Labor Force Survey microdata is available for distribution as licensed-use files. Please contact the identified contact persons to request for the dataset. Conditions for use of licensed datasets are:
-
The data and other materials provided by the Samoa Bureau of Statistics (SBS) will not be redistributed or sold to other individuals, institutions, or organizations without the written agreement of the SBS.
-
The data will be used for statistical and scientific research purposes only. They will be used solely for reporting of aggregated information or the development of statistical models, and not for investigation of specific individuals or organizations.
-
No attempt will be made to re-identify respondents, and no use will be made of the identity of any person or establishment discovered inadvertently. Any such discovery would immediately be reported to the SBS.
-
No attempt, without prior approval, will be made to produce links among datasets provided by the SBS, or among data from the SBS and other datasets that could identify individuals or organizations, nor for destroying the business operations of individuals or organizations.
-
Any books, articles, conference papers, theses, dissertations, reports, or other publications that employ data obtained from the SBS will cite the source of data in accordance with the Citation Requirement provided with the dataset.
-
An electronic copy of all reports and publications based on the requested data will be sent to the SBS.
-
The original collector of the data, the SBS, and the relevant funding agencies bear no responsibility for use of the data or for interpretations or inferences based upon such uses.
-
The primary and other researchers who will be involved in using the data must be identified.
-
The researchers' organization must be identified as must a suitable representative of the organization who must be a signatory to the license.
-
The intended use of the data including a list of expected outputs and the organization's dissemination policy must be identified.
-
A formal agreement must be signed that the files will not be shared beyond the boundaries of the organization.
In the case of a blanket agreement where it is agreed that the data can be used broadly within the receiving organization in a secure manner, the receiving organization must demonstrate a capacity to manage the data files in a secure manner (with an identified individual assigned formal responsibility for doing so) and each additional new user be made aware of the terms and conditions that apply to the data files. This must be achieved by having the users sign an affidavit. Where a blanket agreement exists and data security procedures are in place, it will not be necessary for the users to destroy the data after use is complete.
Use of the dataset must be acknowledged using a citation which would include:
-
The Identification of the Primary Investigator
-
The title of the survey (including country, acronym and year of implementation)
-
The survey reference number
-
The source and date of download
Example:
Samoa Bureau of Statistics. Samoa Labour Force Survey (LFS) 2012. Ref. WSM_2012_LFS_v01_M. Dataset downloaded from [URL] on [date].
Disclaimer and copyrights
The user of the data acknowledges that the original collector of the data, the authorized distributor of the data, and the relevant funding agency bear no responsibility for use of the data or for interpretations or inferences based upon such uses.
Contacts
| Name | Affiliation | URL | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Samoa Bureau of Statistics | Government Ministry | info.stats@sbs.gov.ws | http://www.sbs.gov.ws/ |